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Law and orderSaturday, March 21, 2015
John 7:47-48 But what do I do when the authorities that claim the higher ground of justice are just plain wrong? The Pharisees were dead wrong! Yet, without compromise, they enforced their decision violently and with awful consequences. The Jewish people followed them into perfidy, abandoning their proclaimed messiah, Jesus and opening themselves to centuries of accusation from the new Christ-followers. In the face of this strong-willed mistake, what could we have done? What would we have done to avoid "death?" To submit would be to participate in what Jesus (and Eldridge Cleaver) euphemistically called "the problem." To resist would often result in demonizing those who are demonizing us, and proclaiming a "just war." Jesus found a path of non-violent resistance between two smoking hulks of cultural rubble: the Zealots and the Romans. He walked that path with great skill. Gandhi learned from him, and so did Martin Luther King. We can too. Jesus describes some of the tactics in his sermon on the mount. He models them in some of his parables. He shows us how to rise up out of death with his resurrection. But before each of his tactical decisions, Jesus first called on God. "Sustain the just, o searcher of heart and soul, O just God." This was his strategy, and the tactics of each moment grew out of his prayer. Before dawn silence, Lord, and tears of blood sometimes. Hard-pressed on every side, and still knowing that justice is not served by exchanging evil for evil, sustain me. Jesus, your Father sustains you. O searcher of heart and soul, sustain me too. |
Today's Psalm (7:10) calls on God, "Sustain the just, o searcher of heart and soul, O just God."